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… Mr. Jefferson had suffered for several years before his death, from a diarrhœa, which he concealed from his family, lest it might give them uneasiness. Not aware of it, I was surprised, in conversation with him, in March, 1826, to hear him in speaking of an event likely to occur about midsummer...

Few things could give me more pleasure than to contribute in the smallest degree to the successful termination of the work which at present occupies your time and thoughts. I feel the deepest interest in it.— I will not take up your questions in order, but write what I can, when I can, and as the...

No. 3. I have found it impossible to resume my pen until now when I have an hour or so of leisure before turning my attention to the daily cares & duties which admit of no postponement. The decay of my grandfather’s fortune was owing, as you know, to various causes, but to none more than the...

… The house at Poplar Forest was very pretty and pleasant. It was of brick, one story in front, and, owing to the falling of the ground, two in the rear. It was an exact octagon, with a centre-hall twenty feet square, lighted from above. This was a beautiful room, and served as a dining-room....

No. 4.Life at Poplar Forest. Randall’s Life of Jefferson. vol. 3d P. 342. “Mr Jefferson had once owned I believe something like ten thousand acres of fertile land, (to which the name of Poplar Forest was given,) in the county of Bedford near Lynchburg in Campbell Co. I do not know when he began...

Sent to Mr Randall with alterations or additions which I no longer remember, but the whole letter omitted in Mr Randall’s book No. 5. This letter is a continuation of the one of the 18h and I begin by correcting several small, unimportant inaccuracies. My grandfather’s visits to Bedford were...

I have received your letter of the 25th, and but being confined to the house by an attack of measles from which I am not entirely recovered, some little time may elapse before I can comply with your request in reference to the Publisher. It will give me very great pleasure to aid you in any way...

I have been prevented from writing, my dear Mr Randall, by the illness of one of my sons, and the absence of a confidential domestic who has for years been a sort of right hand on all household matters. I resume my pen uncertain how soon I may be compelled to lay it down. You ask for the...

I know not where to begin in reply to your enquiries, my dear Mr Randall, for many subjects press upon me at once. I will therefore take up the one to which I have already alluded. You say in one of your letters “From some remark that dropped from Wormeley, a former slave in your family, as in...

Enclosed you have part of a letter, which I began a week ago. Sudden and severe cold which confined me some days to my bed, prevented me from going on with it: I send it in it’s unfinished state. Yours of the 22nd with it’s enclosures, reached me yesterday. I am not strong enough to write much to...

In my last short letter I told you &c &c. I should not forget to tell you or remind you that after my marriage, just a year before my Grandfather’s death, I was separated from my family, never saw my grandfather again, and my father but once. (After the anecdote of my grandmother’s...

I cannot myself give you any information as to what became of my grandfather’s letters to my mother. She died at Edgehill, October. 1836. I was in Boston at the time of her death and never saw the papers which she left behind. Her father’s letters were no doubt among those papers, and must be in...

For the details of Mr Jefferson’s funeral I must refer you to my brothers and sisters. I was not present nor was my sister Cornelia. She was with me in Boston when in July 1826, we received a summons to hasten on to Virginia if we wished to see our grandfather alive. We set off immediately but...

I have your two letters before me—If I have not sooner replied to them my excuse is simply that I could not. A complication of family cares & duties rendered it impossible for me to write till now. The first Mrs Francis Eppes was a niece of my father’s—the eldest daughter of his sister Jane...

I meant to make a little sketch of my mother’s life, but never got beyond these two pages— Martha Jefferson was the eldest child of Thomas Jefferson and of Martha Wayles, widow of Bathurst Skelton. She was born in January 1772, & lost her mother when she was but ten years old. She was one of...

The House at Monticello, and the Garden. Mr Jefferson made great changes in the house at Monticello after his return from Europe in 1789. He got new ideas of architecture during his residence abroad, and the buildings at Monticello were completely re-modelled under their influence. The house...

a beginning destined never to go farther— Thomas Jefferson It is now one hundred and fifteen years since a respectable family, possessed of competent fortune, resided on a plantation of Virginia situated on the banks of a mountain stream, the Rivanna, a tributary of the noble James, one of the...

The Carr Family. My grandfather’s sister, Martha, married Dabney Carr a man of great merit. He died young but left six children, three sons & three daughters. Their history, of course, is without interest for the public but Mr Randall may like to know something of them. Peter, the eldest son...

My letters to Mr Randall were written very rapidly, often at night after the family were in bed. They were written in fact so fast that they were generally blotted and interlined, and I was frequently obliged to copy them fair, before sending them. In doing this I involuntarily made additions, ...

“There has been a serious proposition made by the Governor of the State to my father (Col. T. J. Randolph) to have his Grandfather’s remains removed to Richmond, to be placed in the Hollywood Cemetery, where Mr Monroe’s are to be interred, and where Mr Wise proposes that Mr Madison, Mr Jefferson...

So long a time has passed without my writing to you that I fear you may be almost surprised at receiving a letter from me. You will not however have ascribed my silence to change of feeling towards yourself. You know me too well to suspect me of fickleness in my friendships. You will have placed...

I am just from church, a church originally planned by Grandpapa, where I heard a good sermon from an Episcopalian Clergyman, a young man, the Revd Mr. Butler. I have been talking freely with my brother Jefferson on the subject of the ‘yellow children’ and will give you the substance of our...

October 24. We hear of the first act which was the forerunner of our Civil War. John Brown of Kansas notoriety attempted, with fifteen men and five negroes, to take forcible possession of the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. They defended themselves for a day or two, but were killed or taken prisoners....

Schedule I.—Free Inhabitants in Second Ward, City of Madison in the County of Dane State of Wisconsin enumerated by me, on the 7th day of June 1860. Carl Habich Ass’t Marshal. Post Office Madison, Wis.